panza

Forms

panza f (plural panzas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote pança, with ⟨ç⟩ for a voiceless sibilant.^[2][3] Pancho “belly”, recorded from 1613, is a jocular variant of the same word.^[4][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pança, inherited from Latin pantex (“belly, guts”).^[2][4][5][1] The Latin noun was masculine and mostly used in the plural.^[6][7] Its origin is not clear: the OLD compares pānus (“swelling”), and Wiktionary calls it a colloquial word, probably related to that noun.^[6][1][8]

All the Romance languages kept the word: Portuguese pança, Catalan panxa, Occitan pansa, French panse, Italian pancia and Romanian pântece.^[9][2] Only Romanian kept the masculine; elsewhere the noun became feminine with the ending -a, as nouns of the third declension often did, after the /k/ had become palatal.^[2] Corominas sets a Vulgar Latin *pantica behind the Catalan word and the Basque pantika “stomach”.^[2]

Corominas explains the late appearance of the word by its very vulgar character, which Alonso de Palencia noted.^[2] He finds the variant pancho unclear, and judges it most probably Mozarabic, which would also explain its final vowel; it could otherwise come from Catalan, Basque or Italian.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's General Estoria (1272–1275) uses pança of an animal's stomach in the rules of sacrifice: the fat over the entrails, e la pança and both kidneys were to be offered to God.^[3][10] The debate Elena y María (c. 1280, in an early 14th-century copy) mocks a cleric who takes good care of his belly: bien cura su panza.^[3] Corominas, without these texts, dated the word to 1475, in Gonzalo de Segovia.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Corominas describes panza as an expressive word for a very fat or full belly, more colourful and vulgar than vientre, with much the same tone as barriga; it is heard more in southern Spain and in America.^[2] Autoridades defines it as a belly, especially a large one, and extends it to the bulging middle of jars and pitchers.^[11] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has the phrase panza de oveja, the parchment of a university degree, and that of 1869 adds panza de burra.^[12][13] The edition of 1899 adds the zoological sense, the first of the four stomachs of ruminants.^[14] In Mexico, Puerto Rico and Bolivia panza also means tripe as food.^[15]

Timeline

• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General Estoria uses pança of an animal's stomach.^[10][3]
• c. 1280 – Elena y María: bien cura su panza (in an early 14th-century copy).^[3]
• 1475 – Gonzalo de Segovia, the first record in the DCECH and the BDELC.^[2][4]
• 1495 – Nebrija records the derivative panzudo.^[4]
• 1571 – first record in the Americas, in Molina's Nahuatl vocabulary: pança de vientre o el buche.^[16]
• 1613 – the variant pancho.^[4]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades extends it to the bulge of jars and pitchers.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin pantex.^[17]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the sense “rumen”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. Belly, abdomen (barriga, vientre), especially a very large one; paunch: Con tanta cerveza le está saliendo panza.^[5][1]
2. The convex, bulging part of some vessels or other objects: la panza de un cántaro.^[5][18]
3. (zoology) The rumen, first of the four chambers of a ruminant's stomach.^[5]
4. (Mexico, Puerto Rico, Bolivia) tripe as food.^[15]

Word family

• panzada
• panzudo
• despanzurrar
• repantigarse
• empanzarse
• despancijar
• panzón

Related words

• pancho
• Latin pantex
• Portuguese pança
• Catalan panxa

Usage notes

Panza de burra is the parchment on which university degrees were written, and colloquially an overcast grey sky;^[11] panza al trote was a person who always eats at others' expense.^[5][11] Panza is the surname of Sancho, Don Quijote's squire, and of his wife Juana Panza.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 379
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. panza
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. panza
5. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. panza
6. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. pantex
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. pantex
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. panza
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6307
10. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. panza
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 109
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 635
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 570
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 737
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. panza
16. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. panza
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 785
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. panza
19. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 824